Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday February 17, 2012 @12:36PM
from the it-just-goes-on-and-on-my-friends dept.

D___Breath writes "The lawsuit SCO started years ago against IBM (but really against Linux) is back on again. SCO first filed this clue-challenged lawsuit in March 2003. SCO claimed Linux was contaminated with code IBM stole from UNIX and that it was impossible to remove the infringement. Therefore, said SCO, all Linux users owe SCO a license fee of $1399 per cpu — but since SCO are such great guys, for a limited time, you can pay only $699 per CPU for your dirty, infringing copy of Linux. Of course, Novell claimed and later proved in court that SCO doesn't even own the copyrights on UNIX that it is suing over. IBM claims there is no infringing code in Linux. SCO never provided evidence of the massive infringement it claimed existed. The court ordered SCO three times to produce its evidence, twice extending the deadline, until it set a 'final' deadline of Dec 22, 2005 — which came and went — with SCO producing nothing but a lot of hand waving. In the meantime, SCO filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2007 because it was being beaten up in court so badly with the court going against SCO."

What is the obsession with nuking from orbit? If you're in orbit, a kinetic projectile of sufficient mass will get the job done. No nuclear materials, or any sort of intelligence on the projectile is needed. A sufficiently massive chunk of iron at sufficient velocity will get the job done.

This is getting past the "scarer" plot when you think the monster is dead but it gets up again. Its like the B movie when it has happened so many times you have passed the scared point, the laughing point and just wish the bloody thing would finish so you can go home.

Have you read Brooks? Set a zombie on fire, and now you're facing a flaming zombie, lurching around, trying to eat your brains, and, incidentally, setting everything around it on fire--possibly including you.

Before you try fire as an anti-zombie measure, you need to find out whether you're dealing with a Pratchett zombie or a Brooks/Romero type zombie. One key difference is that Pratchett zombies are smart. SCO? Not so much.:)

Yeah when they first started out it was noted that IBM could have just bought out the company at the then market place for less than the lawsuit was expected to cost, but IBM didn't do so. The conjecture here was that it would just create copy cat lawsuilts.

Yes but this was SCO's plan all along. At this point IBM is pissed enough that they want to grind SCO to dust rather than purchase them. Also buying SCO also means buying SCO's liabilities which include numerous lawsuits. (This was the one aspect SCO forgot in that when they bought Santa Cruz's business they also bought Santa Cruz's liabilities to Novell). Really SCO has no assets IBM wants.

Darl may have successfully disentangled himself from that abortion of an ill-advised lawsuit, but I still think he should be eligible for every fiendish punishment IBM's legal specialists can think of. The only variation would be the "lamentation" bit, because I don't think any dire fate he could suffer would cause a wink of lamentation from anyone.

Darl was just a hired gun all along, brought in by the real villains of the piece who have been doing their best to hide behind the curtain of the corporate veil, but almost certainly include Ralph Yarro as a (if not the) real mastermind. The fact that Canopy told Yarro to go away and take The SCO Group with him is pretty strong (albeit circumstantial) evidence that Yarro is deeply involved in the whole plot.

Darl just did what he was paid to do. Sure, he shouldn't get off scott-free, but trying to paint h

The plan made sense when SCO was actually worth something. Now it's basically worthless, other than it's highly dubious claims against IBM. It looks more to me like IBM is trying to get a court to squash the case once and for all.

That sounds expensive.... I think these people have already cost too much,.. they should be required to bludgeon themselves to death with one of those crates of source print outs they submitted to the poor judge years ago. See, recycling can be entertaining!

IBM buying SCO would be a win for SCO's backers. They would point at the purchase and say, "How nefarious! IBM had to buy SCO to cover up IBM's perfidy and malfeasance! Linux really does infringe and contains tainted code! Open Source is Teh Evil!"

They can claim the value of the pending legal action against IBM is $1 trillion dollars if they want to resist a buy-out. Unlike other people who replied here, I don't think SCO wants a buy-out, I don't think they're in this for the money. I mean, they're in it for the money, but they're in it for the massive cash M$ already paid them, and in exchange for that, they are providing FUD. If they let IBM buy them, they will have no FUD left to sell.

Incidentally, the rumor mill says this sort of thing has happened before - a supposedly infringing company that would rather just buy the company who's IP they're infringing, but can not afford to buy that company for the sole reason that the perceived value of the lawsuit against them makes the company unaffordable. A higher offer simply provides evidence that the lawsuit is worth that much more. Supposedly Steve Jobs tried to just buy Apple Corps, and offered more than anyone thought the perpetual rights to the Beatles catalog is worth, but that wasn't enough because they wanted the value of the Beatles catalog plus the value of the lawsuit against Apple... and the lawsuit against Apple was worth at least any offer Jobs would make for Apple Corps...

Given the amount of Other Companies' Servers they run, and the number of ISVs they work with, a frivolous claim of stealing code from a (former) development partner couldn't be allowed to stand and damage their professional reputation.

Hence the scorched-earth/blacken-their-sky-with-lawyers/never-one-cent-in-tribute policy that's clearly meant as a don't-fsck-with-us message to any other dying company seeing a very deep set of pockets to try picking.

IBM could make that claim in the beginning; statute of limitations does not apply to the length of a lawsuit. SCO filed within the statute; them dragging a non-case for years is another matter. Now should SCO file new claims then IBM can invoke statute of limitations.

I thought that SCO was totally transformed into a new company called UnXiS, which owns SCO OSE and Unixware, and apparently doesn't have a clue on what to do w/ them. They're still alive to sue? Does anyone other than its board really work there? What's their source of income, for starters? After Monterrey went south, I thought it was over for them.

Honestly, I think their best hope would be to port Unixware to the Itanium, and try to get bought by Intel.

Statute of limitations, and its equitable cousin laches [wikipedia.org], prevent one from bringing claims after a certain period of time eg 2 years after an incident. SCO brought the claim within the appropriate time frame, and in any case they allege the infringement is ongoing (and so the only issue related to statute of limitations is how far back damages can be calculated - usually two or so years before the claim was issued).

There are other doctrines that may apply during and after a proceeding. For example res judica [wikipedia.org]

Actually, IBM wants to go forward at this point so that they can thoroughly crush SCO into the dirt. A good part of this is about taking away any last assets SCO may have so that they don't get paid to SCO's lawyers.

UNIX is nowhere near old enough to have had its copyright expire yet. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that SCO doesn't own the copyright.

Expiration of copyright and statute of limitations are separate issues.

Copying of a work after the copyrights expire does not constitute copyright infringement.

If infringement has occurred, one must bring a claim before the statute of limitations expires.

Expiration of copyright is somewhere in the order of 80 years or so, depending on where you are. The typical statute of limitations is usually between 1 and 6 years, depending on the claim and the jurisdiction.

IAAL, but this is not legal advice. Please seek legal counsel for advice on any specific issues.

I believe SCO worked out a deal with Boies in the middle of the case. The trial fees were capped at $25M but Boies was paid upfront. So Boies has to represent SCO; however, with the money gone, no one says they have to represent with their best attorneys.

At one point SCO got BS&F to agree to represent them through appeals for what BS&F had already received plus a percentage of the proceeds.

Which is a strategic mistake on the part of BS&F, and should be considered a conflict of interest, since it gives them a stake in the outcome. It no longer makes them attorneys for the plaintiffs, but rather turns them into the plaintiffs. They may have become more focused on their own best interest, and less focused on their client's best interest.

IBM should assign a Nazgul or two to milk this law firm into bankruptcy. They can afford it.

Strategic errors in filing, allowing the lawsuit a gasp of O2, that force the shysters to spend more money for nothing. Then subpena the senior partners to testify about conflicts of interest. Repeat until BS&F cries. Then repeat some more, make them get honest jobs.

IBM has already moved for summary judgement and the court has ruled that there are enough issues of law for the case to proceed. Normally summary judgements are granted when they are no issues of fact. Some of the claims SCO has made may be thrown out because they did not own the copyrights. (IBM violating their Unix agreements have been waived by Novell and Novell owns the Unix copyrights). Claims that IBM interfered with SCO's business and IBM infringed upon UnixWare copyrights is a question of law.

Now that SCO has spent all its money and sold off all its assets for peanuts, now it can proceed with lawsuits where it will be found liable for additional money. All still safely behind the shield of bankruptcy court of course (A court which thinks selling off all assets and giving the finger to creditors is a plausible way to restructure a business)

The MOR for TSG shows total assets as $0 (yes, that's "zero"), down from $1,326,293 on petition date, and total liabilities of $1,119,238, up from $418,965 on petition date. The MOR for TSG Operations shows total assets as $1,515,129, down from $15,493,080 on petition date, and total liabilities of $9,739,295, up from $4,311,640 on petition date. Go SCO! It was not bankrupt when it entered bankruptcy protection, but it surely is now.

Total assets: $1,515,129. Total Debt: $10,858,533

Hmm... SCO's in a world of hurt. I'm trying to figure out how they can even get lawyers to work with them at this point, unless they're using a 'We don't get paid unless you get paid!' ambulance chaser-type personal liability attorney.

Hey, IBM. That's a total of $12,373,662. According to your 2010 income report, it looks like you're making a net of about 14 billion dollars a year... literally more than a thousand times that. And I'm thinking that at least some of that $10.9m is owed to you. If you guys negotiate a bit with the other creditors, I'm betting you could simply up and purchase all SCO's assets for about $2-4m.

That's lunch money for a company like IBM. It's less than a certain Kickstart project we've all been reading about.

Think about the good will you could create by taking a dump truck to what's left of SCO and then public-domaining the entire shebang.

Only when they're fighting over billions. IBM will spend more on lawyers that SCO would cost to buy right now. It's in their shareholders' interest to end this case as cheaply as possible. Buying what's left of SCO is the quickest and cheapest solution, and a kick in the teeth for Microsoft.

"Quickest and cheapest" is only good for short-term shareholders. Those with long-term investments will want IBM to do everything in their power to ensure nobody else is emboldened to try to extort IBM with bullshit charges in the future. Buying out SCO was always the "quickest and cheapest" option. Instead they are making an example of SCO and do not intend to give an inch in the process. This is best in the long term.

At least for the Novell lawsuit, they paid the lawyers a lump sum and go them to agree to continue with the case through all appeals without further pay. I don't remember whether that agreement applied to the IBM lawsuit as well.

And that $1.5 million is their TOTAL assets. They sold off everything but their rights to continue the lawsuit with IBM. There's nothing left to public domain.

The original deal in the IBM lawsuit was that BSF would get paid in shares of SCO stock (which presumably would be worth a lot more after SCO won, making for a tidy windfall for BSF). But that turned out to be a problem for BSF: IBM pointed out that BSF weren't merely counsel but had an actual personal interest in the suit (seeing as they held or would hold an ownership interest in SCO). That scared BSF, because it meant they couldn't avoid liability for judgements if the suit went badly for SCO. That resul

IBM has 3 reasonable purposes here:1. They want SCO to have to get up in court and admit that they never had a leg to stand on, or a ruling from the bench to the same effect. This is in part to prevent any successor to SCO from pulling the same stunt.2. To deter anyone else who's tempted to make similar claims from even trying it.3. Buying them out would be a mercy killing. IBM has no reason to be merciful.

It's a fact that Microsoft funded SCO's lawsuits against Linux under the table.

In October 2003, BayStar Capital and Royal Bank of Canada invested US$50 million in The SCO Group to support the legal cost of SCO's Linux campaign. Later it was shown that BayStar was referred to SCO by Microsoft, whose proprietary Windows operating system competes with Linux. In 2003, BayStar looked at SCO on the recommendation of Microsoft, according to Lawrence R. Goldfarb, managing partner of BayStar Capital: "It was evident that Microsoft had an agenda".

On March 4, 2004, a leaked SCO internal e-mail detailed how Microsoft had raised up to $106 million via the BayStar referral and other means. Blake Stowell of SCO confirmed the memo was real. BayStar claimed the deal was suggested by Microsoft, but that no money for it came directly from them. In addition to the Baystar involvement, Microsoft paid SCO $6M (USD) in May 2003 for a license to "Unix and Unix-related patents", despite the lack of Unix-related patents owned by SCO.

"If you do not drop the suit now, or submit the claimed infringing code as evidence in ten days, the suit will be dismissed with prejudice, you will pay all court costs and legal fees for the defendant, and you will be jailed for contempt of court."

actually, I'd think it would benefit Apple more than MicrosoftSteve Jobs pre-death said he "wants to go thermonuclear on Android"Android runs using Java on LinuxSCO owns some interest in UNIX (apparently) and claims to own Linux and is suing for $699-2798 for a licensean Android phone even starting at $699 is already D.O.A. because you can buy a friggin' iPad for thatApple has the second largest marketshare for smartphones behind Android, so has the most to win - Microsoft has a measly 2%.ergo an SCO win is

Actually this, if it goes through, would clear IBM and such remove the SCO threat to Linux completely (at least from SCO's claims that were filed).

I would actually bet money that this the deal struck between IBM and SCO is one where SCO gets paid to let IBM win that case. Thus saving (for a time) SCO from complete bankruptcy and clearing IBM, and thus Linux, from the charges leveled by SCO.

"Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. "Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" "Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU say?" "I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" "Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" "Probably," said Mr. Vholes.

Too late for money to matter I fear, SCOX was delisted so you cant get a majority share and tell them to sit down and shut up. What we're left with is some sort of zombie corporation that's still attacking even efter we shotgunned its head.

Because that would leave the impression that IBM had done what SCO accued them of, and IBM was just burying the evidence. Not the sort of impression you want to give when your clients include major foreign banks, militaries and governments and they have to trust you with access to information they don't want even your government getting access to. And IBM does a lot of business. If losing customer's trust costs IBM even 1-2% a year of business, fighting SCO in court is still cheaper by an order of magnitude

SCO wanted to reopen the case, not IBM. But SCO wanted to reopen only their side of it, without allowing IBM to bring up any of their side. That... failed to fly with the judge, and SCO and their lawyers really had no choice. If they hadn't reopened the case, I'm fairly sure the next step would've been for IBM and others to move for the bankruptcy court to convert SCO's case over to Chapter 7 liquidation seeing as according to SCO their only asset left is the litigation and that isn't worth anything if SCO